A Very Timey-Wimey Halloween
by noa748
Summary: Basically, dressing as the Doctor for Halloween is the same as painting a giant target on your back. My advice? Don't do it. Daleks might crash your party - literally.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Happy early Halloween! This is a Halloween special I wrote for fun - part two will be posted tomorrow night! **

**For those of you who don't know me... this is a self-insert character! Juuuust so you know what you're getting into. XD Here we go, another real-world girl getting involved with the Doctor. This is me coping with the fact I couldn't dress up as Ten this year.**

**Enjoyyyy! I'm off to a Halloween bash with my roommate B-)**

* * *

><p>October 31st, 2014.<p>

I cruised along the back roads in my car, one hand on the steering wheel and the other reaching for my phone to check the time. Ten-thirty… not too late. I couldn't stop my grin; good. For once I wouldn't be missing a party. I really had to suck up to my boss and bust my ass tonight to get cut early, but it had been worth it.

One of my good friends was throwing a big Halloween bash at her place out in Scarborough. I wasn't the biggest fan of large parties (usually I barely knew anyone and compensated by drinking too much so I'd be more outgoing), but tonight a lot of cool people were going. Only the people I was friends with were actually staying the night, so it was going to be a blast once things died down a bit.

My grin grew. It was going to be fun seeing what everyone dressed up as. I was looking forward to Matt in particular; he'd had a few choice words for us when we told him we'd steal his beer and kick him out if he didn't show up in costume. Over the past few days he'd been texting me for costume ideas and cursing me out when I sent him back pictures of Chippendales dancers.

Even if I hadn't already known where the house was, it would've been easy to find; there were nine or ten cars already parked out front. Several lit jack-o-lanterns were placed on the front steps and fake cobwebs were hung from the trees. I could hear the music the second I parked and opened my car door, and I had to lean my head back and laugh. Of course Sarah would be blasting the _Ghostbusters _theme of all things. Other people would be playing shitty pop music, but she was using the cheesiest Halloween stuff she could find.

Feeling considerably more relaxed—this was going to be fun, I could feel it—I got out of the car, straightening my own costume and ruffling my long brown hair a bit. For a moment I scanned the driveway to figure out who was here. Matt's car was pulled way over to the side; Ryan's was behind it. Sarah's roommates were parked in front of the garage doors, and a few of the other cars I didn't recognize.

Mentally prepared now, I trotted up to the front door, pulled it open and plunged into the dimly lit house. The music immediately enveloped me; some of the partygoers turned at my entrance, and a few people I recognized waved.

_"Brittany!" _A female voice called.

I turned to see Sarah running over to me, all smiles. I took one look at her and threw my arms up in excitement—she was decked out in dark robes with a red and yellow scarf, her normally straight blonde hair now very wavy.

"Hermione!" I greeted her, laughing. "Wow, I love it!"

"Thanks!" She was bouncing excitedly on the balls of her feet. "I got all the goods when I went to Universal with Amy a few months ago. Check it out, I even have her wand!"

"Nice," I said. "You look—"

Suddenly I faltered when a figure appeared next to me. I turned to see someone in a ridiculous dopey looking shark costume standing there, and I snorted incredulously.

"Okay, who the hell are _you?"_

"Candygram," the shark joked in a nasally voice, and offered me a Jell-O shot.

_"Matt?" _I smacked my forehead. "Is that you in there? Oh my god."

"You drove me to this," he said. "Take your medicine. In a few hours this will seem normal."

Behind him, Ryan—dressed as a male cheerleader—was cracking up. I rolled my eyes and gave in, swallowing the shot I had been handed. Matt tilted his stupid shark head, causing a laugh to bubble up in my throat; I nearly spewed some of the Jell-O out my nose.

"Jeez, control yourself, you spaz," Matt said. This got Sarah going too, and the blonde leaned against Ryan for support.

"You know the best way to shut a shark up? Punch it in the nose," I shot back when I finally regained my composure.

"Yeah, and what are you supposed to be? Let's see, pinstripe suit, dorky glasses, oh god, even the _shoes? _Where's the TARDIS, you fucking nerd?"

I stuck my tongue out, waving the cheap sonic screwdriver I'd bought at Hot Topic in his face. "You know what the TARDIS is, which makes you a nerd too, loser."

A select group of people at this party had seen Doctor Who, since I had gone through a phase last year where I wouldn't shut up about it; half of them had watched a bunch of episodes just to see what the fuss was about. Though he denied it, I knew Matt was one of those people. He knew too many little terms from the show not to be a fan.

"Way to rock that suit, Brit," Ryan piped up. "Someone else dressed up as Ten here too! Heh, I think you might've given him a run for his money—too bad he didn't stick around for long."

"Damn," I said. "But y'know, there can only be one!"

"Amen," Matt said. "Two would be a headache. Hey, who's up for a drinking game? Every time Josh does the Batman voice…"

We all groaned; Josh had been Batman _every Halloween _since The Dark Knight came out. And lo and behold, three seconds after Matt uttered the challenge, we heard a throaty growl coming from behind us.

_"Hey."_

"I hate you," I said, taking the drink Matt handed to me.

"Cheers, Doctor," he said with a cheeky grin. We all drank, with the exception of a very confused Batman.

* * *

><p>The party lasted well into the night, and for a while I lost track of time mingling. The combination of the heat in the house and the dim lighting and the food I was eating eventually caused my stomach to start doing somersaults, so I switched to water halfway through the night and tried to will away the nausea.<p>

_Too many people. _ Guh. Someone was smoking weed out on the porch and it had wafted into the house, making everything that much worse. I took another swig of my bottled water, slipping out on to the front lawn.

Matt had taken off his shark costume due to the heat; he was standing outside smoking a cigarette, his bangs plastered to his sweaty forehead.

"Yo," he said when I walked up to stand beside him.

"Yo yourself," I replied. "… I feel like shit."

"Fuckin' lightweight."

"Oh, bite me."

For a moment we stood there, staring up at the stars. The night air out here was refreshingly cool compared to inside the house, and it made me feel better almost immediately. Even the smoke from Matt's cigarette didn't bother me that much now.

"Full moon on Halloween," Matt commented. "Doesn't get much better than that."

"Is that a shooting star?" My brow furrowed; I had spied a twinkling something directly above us.

"Hey, yeah, looks like it…" he replied, tilting his head up. "It looks pretty close—oh shit, oh _fuck, _it's actually—!"

It took a moment to for his words to register along with the picture I was seeing—the twinkling quickly became a blaze, and suddenly I realized it was getting closer and coming straight for us.

_"Move! EVERYONE, MOVE!" _Matt yelled, grabbing my arm.

We both ran as far as we could out of the way and the other people in front of the house let out screams, scattering in all directions. There was a whine that quickly turned into a screech as the metallic flaming _thing _cut through the air like a knife, hitting the ground and sending earth flying everywhere. The ground rumbled and the two of us fell to our knees.

For a few seconds after the impact the music from the party was still going, but then it suddenly cut out. Bewildered people began piling out of the house, staring with wide eyes at the crater that now occupied a large portion of Sarah's front yard.

"What… the hell…?" Sarah herself had wandered up beside Matt and I; we slowly got to our feet, though I did so a bit shakily.

"Holy shit," Matt breathed. "Did that really just happen?"

"Is it a meteorite? Like what happened in Russia?" Sarah edged closer to the crater, trying to catch a closer glimpse at the smoking thing at the center.

Ryan was walking up, brushing himself off. "There's no way we should be alive after that," he remarked; his voice was calm, but I saw a tremor in his left hand. "I—I mean, not unless it somehow pulled back on its own at the last second. Something that big hitting the ground from that far up… you saw, it was _flaming."_

"That's stupid, how could it pull back?" One of Sarah's friends piped up. "It's just a rock—"

It was at that moment that a hatch in the _rock _opened up, releasing a cloud of smoke. The crowd that had gathered let out a murmur of surprise, stepping back.

"Oh _man._" Ryan was fumbling for his phone to take a video; I grabbed his arm to still him. My heart was pounding; I had no idea what to expect, but somehow I felt like snapping stupid cell phone pictures should be the last thing on our minds right now.

A floating blue light became visible from the darkness inside the craft. Something shifted and drew into the moonlight; the blue light was attached to a stalk, and the stalk was attached to a metallic body, one that—

My mouth fell open. Part of me wanted to call it all a joke, one big elaborate Halloween prank, but I had already seen too much. Nobody could do _that _as part of a prank. There was no way.

"Is this a joke?" Sarah voiced my initial thoughts, her eyes wide with disbelief.

"LANDING OPERATION SUCCESSFUL," a new voice came, sounding disjointed and robotic—it was coming from the _thing _that had exited the craft.

_Dalek._

I stood frozen. There was no way. I knew it couldn't be a joke, but it _had _to be, because Daleks weren't _real, _the only Daleks I knew of were just empty props—

"ALL DALEK SOLDIERS UNDAMAGED. CORRECT COODRINATES CONFIRMED," the thing said. And, to my horror, three more appeared behind it, their bodies rotating as they observed the crowd.

"HUMANS DETECTED. WITNESSES MUST NOT SURVIVE," the leader spoke. "EXTERMINATE THE HUMANS! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"

"This isn't real," Ryan said, but he was backing up.

One of the Daleks attacked, and a beam of light shot out at a girl next to me; her face had lit up with recognition the moment the Daleks had shown up, and now she knew to dive out of the way. She fell to the ground and the tree behind us exploded into flames. Somebody screamed. The Daleks were turning and now I _knew, _it didn't matter if they were what they looked like, they were armed to _kill._

We were at a sudden threshold. I could feel it, I could see it in everyone's eyes—any second now we would lose all rationality and the mob mentality would take over. Everyone was going to run in separate directions, tripping over each other. And to these _things, _it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

Though in my head I knew this, my legs were telling me to _run._ There was no alternative. Run. Run. _Run!_

It took me a moment to realize I had been screaming the word aloud, and about half the group obeyed. My heart pounded in my ears and I felt Matt gripping my arm hard enough to bruise, and even though people were panicking and running for some reason the Daleks had frozen in place, slowly turning to face me.

"IT IS THE DOCTOR," one of them said. My heart stopped.

"THE DOCTOR IS HERE!"

"Go, go, get out of here, _hurry, for fuck's sake," _Matt hissed in my ear. But the Daleks had stopped. People were escaping and the Daleks had _stopped attacking._

I could hear the sound of sirens in the distance. Soon the cavalry would arrive to deal with this—whether that would be an utter disaster or not was none of my concern. It would be enough of a distraction for me to run away. But now… if—if I could just _stall _for a minute…

Feeling like I was in a dream, I shook off Matt's hand and took a step forward.

"That's right, here I am—hello!"

I tried to follow Ten's speech patterns but didn't bother attempting the accent, wondering if the Daleks would notice either way. They didn't—they actually _backed _up the moment I abruptly stepped forward.

"THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE," one of the Daleks declared.

"THE DOCTOR COULD NOT KNOW OF OUR LANDING COORDINATES," the lead Dalek said.

These things were fucking death machines and here I was trying to impersonate the _Doctor _of all people, who always had some cheeky comeback no matter how desperate the situation—what the hell was I supposed to _say? _My nausea returned in full force, but at the same time I wasn't completely immobilized by fear either. A tiny voice in the back of my head was telling me it was the alcohol—I was scared but not taking this nearly as seriously as I would have otherwise.

"Oh, but that's where you're wrong," I told them, forcing a grin. "Look at you. Daleks, always so close-minded. Is it really that difficult to believe there was a flaw in your plan?"

"HOW COULD THE DOCTOR KNOW? EXPLAIN! _EXPLAAAIN!"_ a Dalek prodded, moving forward a bit. I stood my ground, but next to me Matt flinched.

"I hope you know what you're doing," he whispered.

Matt, Ryan, Sarah, and three or four of Sarah's friends were all that remained; the rest had run, though I could spy a few people hiding in the trees and attempting to see what was going on.

_"Welllll." _I said the word Tennant-style, raising my eyebrows. "It's all rather simple, really."

Sirens growing closer. My heart pounding out of control. _C'mon…_

"THE DOCTOR WILL EXPLAIN!" The Dalek repeated, drawing a pace closer.

I was at the end of my rope. I didn't have a plan. I didn't even know what was going on; how could I bullshit my way through this? One step at a time, one step at a time.

My reply came in the form of a remembered line from the show.

I snorted with feigned amusement, though it sounded horribly fake to my own ears. "The Doctor will _not. _You're the ultimate race, aren't you? Superior enough to _exterminate _everyone with a different biological makeup? Go on, think for yourselves, _Daleks!"_

The Daleks paused for a moment in silence. There was a tense couple of seconds as the few of us that remained stood there, too afraid to dare an escape; the aliens turned to each other and then turned back to face me.

"THE DOCTOR IS STALLING," the leader concluded. "INCREASED HEARTBEAT DETECTED. THE DOCTOR IS _AFRAIIID."_

"We'd better run," Ryan hissed in my ear.

"There's no way we'd make it!" Sarah protested.

The Daleks were right. I was _very _afraid, and being found out just made it worse. I couldn't control my own fear, and the Doctor always showed courage in the face of danger, especially in the face of his bitter enemies.

Suddenly one of the Daleks jerked. "CALCULATION ERROR! ONLY ONE HEARTBEAT DETECTED! THIS CREATURE IS HUMAN!"

Oh, _shit. _

_"Wrong!" _I declared, on the verge of panic. "If I weren't the Doctor, would I have _this?" _

In a last bid for survival I whipped out the sonic, hoping it would warn them off, pressing the switch to activate it. The device let out a whirring sound, and that was when the Dalek ship exploded.

The aliens scattered, caught off-guard by the sudden explosion; one of them was actually knocked aside, crashing to the ground. For a moment I stood there agape, but my friends were alert enough to grab me and make a run for it.

"Come on, you suicidal idiot!" Matt yelled. "Run!"

"DO NOT ALLOW THE HUMANS TO ESCAPE!"

"Shit!" Ryan cried. "Here they come!"

"EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"

A blast of something shot between Matt and I, singeing my suit at the shoulder. The forest in front of us exploded into flame, and his grip was broken on my wrist; then attacks were raining down on us and I lost track of everything, breaking out in a complete sprint for my life.

The forest was on fire all around me. Flaming branches fell and I was forced to dodge, and the sound of the Dalek attack echoed from all angles. My friends were nowhere to be found. I felt that I would be hit and killed at any minute, but regardless my legs carried me onwards seemingly with a will of their own.

* * *

><p>Somehow, in some unbelievable stroke of luck, I escaped the Dalek attack. What I left behind was a raging forest fire lighting up the night sky, along with a prominent plume of black smoke; the sirens of police cars and fire trucks still rang through the air, along with what sounded like gunfire. I silently prayed for whoever was unfortunate enough to face off against the Daleks.<p>

Now I was trotting on the sidewalk about a mile and a half from Sarah's house with no idea of where I was going. I was a long ways from home, but was home even an option right now? I couldn't just go back and pretend I hadn't been here. But there were armed responders already at the scene, and it wasn't like I could just go to the government or something and say that aliens from _Doctor Who _were attacking…

Somebody passed me as I jogged; I slowed and whipped around, intending to warn them about the danger in that direction.

"Hey—" Then I recognized the silhouette and stopped short. _No way._

The floppy-haired figure in the tweed jacket stopped in an almost comical fashion, jerking to a halt mid-step and holding up his hands like he'd forgotten what to do with them. Then he slowly turned around to face me. My heart skipped a beat.

_It was him. _The Daleks were one thing, but this was… this was…

"Ahhh!" He made a little noise of delight and amusement, his face lighting up and his eyes sparkling. "Just the person I was looking for!" He was practically bouncing in place with excitement. "Brilliant back there, absolutely brilliant. The way you sort of—" he did a vague gesture with his hands, puffing out his chest to imitate my false bravado, "—and the _screwdriver, _perfect! Couldn't have done it better myself."

I was nearly speechless, my eyes wide. "Y-you're…"

"Yes. Right," the man seemed to get back on track. "Hello, I'm the Doctor, pleased to meet you. Contrary to what you may have believed I am very real, and so are those pesky Daleks you encountered back there, though they seem to have gone a bit wonky from the crash—a female claiming to be me, and they notice the heartbeat first? The _heartbeat!" _

"Are you—" I blinked. "You're seriously the Doctor?"

"Oh, yes," he replied with a grin. "Prove it? All right. You forgot something." Reaching into his coat, he pulled out a sonic screwdriver.

But—no. That wasn't Eleven's sonic—that was Ten's. How would… no, no, that wasn't… that was _my _sonic, the fake plastic one I'd bought at the mall yesterday! How did he get that?

"Nicked it from your suit when you took it off halfway through the party," the Doctor explained smugly.

I remembered taking the suit jacket off when I went to use the restroom at one point—no way, had he been there the whole party and I hadn't noticed him? Ryan had mentioned seeing someone else in a Ten costume, but not an Eleven…

"But then, the sonic I used earlier…" My mouth dropped open as I put the pieces together, and I pulled the screwdriver out of my pocket. It was larger than the one I had bought, and the gem was green… _I was holding the real thing._

"Hello," the Doctor said with a knowing smile, giving me a small wave. "I'll be taking that back now. Oh, no worries, I did make some modifications to yours. The noise was wrong, all wrong. Ah—it's much more glowy now, and—well, you'll learn. You might want to keep it away from small animals and watermelons. Makes watermelons explode—or was it the animals? Can't remember, not important."

I stared warily at the modified screwdriver he had handed me, thinking that the distinction was _kind of _important, but his train of thought had passed and left me in the dust before I could even catch up.

"Now." He reached out and gripped me by the shoulders, meeting my gaze in earnest. "I came here to tell you something very important, and there isn't much time. I have to tell you—what was it again?"

"Doctor!" I finally said, shaking off his hands and trying to get his attention. "I—I don't know what's going on or how this can even be real, but there's Daleks attacking—you have to help us!"

"It can't be me," he said, shaking his head. "Not this me, anyway. Things are about to get very wibbly wobbly and—"

A rushing, wheezing sound. There was a shift in the shadows behind the Doctor, and then a very familiar blue police box appeared behind him. The door opened and a blinding light shined from within.

"Yes, yes, I _know!" _ He said, turning to the TARDIS and stomping his foot with a petulance that was almost childish.

"Not _this _you? There's another Doctor around here?" I asked slowly as it dawned on me, my eyes widening.

He flinched a little. "Yes. No. Maybe—I shouldn't have said that. _Ah!" _ The Time Lord threw his hands into the air, seeming to have an epiphany. "I _remember! _Now listen carefully, Brittany, the fate of this Earth hangs in the balance!"

I had opened my mouth to say something more, but his words held a weight that caused me to fall silent. I realized with a sudden terror that he was going to leave, the TARDIS was getting ready to whisk him away and he was going to leave me here and all I would have left were his words.

_"Eighty-seven!" _The Doctor said, grinning madly like he'd said the cleverest thing in the universe.

_"What?" _I blurted out, bewildered.

"The answer! Eighty-seven! That's all I can tell you—I have to go!" The TARDIS was attempting to depart, and the Doctor had to yell over the sound of the time rotor.

"W-wait! _Doctor!"_

"There's no time!" He called, turned halfway towards me with one foot in the doorway. "Find me, defeat the Daleks, save the multiverse!"

It looked like that was going to be it, he was going to just leave—but then at the last second he poked his head through the door, a hard to read emotion in his fathomless dark eyes. Finally he perked up and gave me a smile that seemed almost fond.

"Geronimo," he said, and then turned away.

The TARDIS was already beginning to vanish even as the door was closing. A nonexistent wind blew my hair back as I stood there, watching the impossible become possible, questioning everything I'd once believed.

"Geronimo," I whispered in reply, still awestruck.


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor and the TARDIS. Unbelievable. Screw the Daleks, this was beyond my wildest dreams. The mad man and his box actually existed? How could this be happening? I wasn't even sure how to react—a crazy, impulsive part of me wished I could've just climbed into the TARDIS with him, thrown all caution to the wind. Then the rational part of me took into account my pounding heartbeat and my shaking hands, and I knew I could never deal with this insanity day in and day out.

But the Doctor—oh, he was the _Doctor, _and I had let him _leave!_

The smell of smoke hit me again and I registered the crackling of flames and the sound of sirens once more, and I remembered just what situation I had been left in the middle of. Save the multiverse? Just who did he think I was?

A minute beeping sound that had been growing louder and louder broke me out of my reverie. For a moment a jolt of panic hit me and I wondered if a Dalek had somehow found me, but then I realized that the beeping was accompanied by the sound of footsteps. I looked up just in time to see the individual passing me—he seemed distracted by some strange device, the source of the beeping. The moment he passed me, however, he drew to an abrupt halt.

_Hold on._

I wasn't sure if my poor heart could take any more surprises today, but after catching that glimpse I couldn't stop myself from whipping around.

The man whipped around at the same time and then we were facing each other completely, and Jesus Christ it was David Tennant—_no. _It was the Doctor. _Again._ First time for him, second for me… oh man, this was going to get confusing.

_It can't be me. Not this me, anyway._

Of course. That was what he had meant. The Doctor—Eleven—had just risked a hell of a lot by jumping in the middle of his own timeline. No wonder the TARDIS had been so eager to go.

Ten was staring at me in complete bewilderment, his brows drawn together comically and his lips parted just a bit.

I suddenly felt very self-conscious and awkward standing here in this getup; the suit felt silly when I was standing right in front of the real thing. Reaching up, I plucked off my fake glasses at the very same time the Doctor squinted at me and put on his own.

"Well, this explains quite a bit," he finally remarked absently.

"Huh?" I blinked, taken aback.

"You've had a run-in with those Daleks, haven't you? Got them all wound up. Now I see what they mean, looking for _two _of me."

He waved his sonic screwdriver at me for a moment and then paused to stare at the readings. I kept my mouth shut, thinking about the real second Doctor that had been lurking until just a minute ago.

With a flick of the wrist, he flipped the screwdriver in his hand and returned it to his pocket. Then he met my gaze.

"Infinite number of universes, but only one race of Time Lords. How exactly do you know of me?"

"It's… a TV show," I replied slowly, brow furrowed. "It's called _Doctor Who._"

That bewildered look again. "A show on the telly? _Really?_"

I pulled out my replica sonic, attempting to deftly flip it in my hand the way he had, and instead ended up hot-potatoing it for a few seconds before finally catching it upside down.

"…Really," I confirmed, trying to pretend I meant to do that.

He wasn't watching me anymore—instead now he seemed very distracted by my screwdriver. The Time Lord snatched it out of my hand, staring at the bottom of it.

"'Made in China,'" he read the tiny sticker on the bottom. "Lovely. Now I've seen everything."

A loud rumble came from behind me and I looked over my shoulder to see the forest fire intensify, a plume of black smoke wafting into the starless night. It was a terrible reminder of the chaos ensuing while we stood here practically in the eye of the storm.

The Doctor seemed to jerk back to reality as well. He returned the screwdriver to me, looking past me the entire time.

"Ah. Daleks. S'pose it can wait," he murmured distractedly. Then he looked down at me, seeming to perk up, his dark eyes filling with a stubborn determination.

"Right, yes—hello, I'm the Doctor, rather _non_fiction, I'm afraid. And you are?"

"Brittany. Brittany Furness," I replied, and I couldn't stop a wry smile from forming at how similar his introduction was to the one I'd just received from his future self.

"Furness! An English name; I knew I liked you." The Doctor grinned. "Brilliant costume—oh, you even found my swirly tie, I love my swirly tie." He sobered. "Unfortunately, you picked a very bad day to dress like me. The Daleks are hunting for you—you'll be in danger everywhere except on my ship, and the TARDIS is out of range at the moment."

"Oh, good," I said. My tone was dry, but his words had shaken me. "Guess I'm sticking with you, then."

"Which would put you in even worse danger," the Doctor pointed out, raising his eyebrows. "But I _do _need an extra hand, and considering you're already dressed like a target…"

Worse danger? That was debatable. The Doctor would plunge right into the fray, sure, but at least he stood a chance of defending himself and the people with him—if I got stuck with a Dalek one-on-one, I was dead for sure.

My mouth was dry. I thought of Matt, Sarah and Ryan, who I had lost in the woods while running for my life. I thought of all the people at that party, everyone who was still unaccounted for. Everyone had been drinking, some of them excessively… how had they fared in the escape?

"Doctor, I'm here to help," I told him. The private joke would've almost been funny in less life-threatening circumstances. "What's the plan?"

The Time Lord grinned again, which was probably the most alarming thing; it was then that I remembered he never made plans, and I began to wonder just what I was getting myself into.

"Let's head back on over to that crater, shall we?"

* * *

><p>Sarah's front lawn was just as I had left it, though the Daleks were absent; I nervously wondered where they could be as we approached. Wreaking havoc on the city? How many people had died?<p>

The entire area was cordoned off with yellow police tape and there were cruisers everywhere. There was a man in a lab coat down by the ship who seemed to be taking samples, and at least five officers were walking around the area and investigating. It was somewhere we were clearly not allowed to be, but the Doctor strode in with confidence and I followed.

"Sir, this is a restricted zone," an officer called, approaching. "Are you authorized to be—"

"Yes, actually," the Doctor replied, holding open a leather wallet. I realized his psychic paper was displayed within, and looked between the officer and the Time Lord, blinking.

The officer visibly cringed. "_Oh—_so sorry, sir. Please, we could use your help. But who is…?" He was looking a bit bemused at my costume.

"My assistant," the Doctor replied. "Terrible taste in jokes, I know. Well, carry on, then, don't mind us."

"Y…Yes, sir." The man moved on to continue with his work, though he was clearly puzzled.

I did my best to ignore the 'terrible taste' jab, though I couldn't resist sending the Time Lord a look; he just sent a shamelessly amused look right back at me and went on with what he was doing. We had approached the crater and he took his sonic out of his coat pocket, inspecting the scene.

"It's not a Dalek ship, is it?" I asked, remembering that their ships looked much more like cliché UFOs—this was much more like a weird metallic rock than anything else.

"No," the Doctor replied, pulling out a pair of 3D glasses and putting them on. "It's an escape pod. Just large enough to hold a few, but a few is all it takes… escaped from the void through a crack in the walls of the universe. They were searching for _my _Earth, and found yours."

"And that's how you got here, too?"

"Yes," he said quietly. "And with every trip, a bit of reality chips away. The Daleks don't belong here—this has to be set right before it's too late."

I pondered that for a moment, trying to swallow it. A crack in the walls of the universe. The void… the _multiverse. _Somewhere out there was the Doctor's universe, and there were millions—no, billions of other universes out there. It was real, all of it was real.

_"Brittany!"_

I looked up at the sudden voice, only to see a very familiar blonde struggling to run towards me. Sarah had to break away from the EMTs, shrugging off her shock blanket in order to get over to where we were standing.

"Sarah!" I ran forward and caught her in a tight hug, feeling relief rush through me. She was alive… thank goodness.

"Are you all right?" I asked her, but my question went unheard. She was staring over my shoulder with wide eyes.

"Oh my god…" She murmured. "You… You're…"

"Yes," the Doctor replied, approaching.

"It's really you…" She paused for a moment, just staring; then she jerked herself out of it, her eyes growing bright with barely suppressed tears. "You have to help us, Doctor. They killed Rochelle, they just shot her down in the street! Please stop them!"

Hearing that name was like a punch to the gut.

"Rochelle is dead…?" I whispered. We hadn't been more than acquaintances, but the knowledge that I was never going to see her again—it didn't seem real. She and Matt had been friends since childhood. How was I going to tell him?

The Doctor's eyes darkened; I could see the fury in them, and the sheer depth to it was frightening.

"I promise you, I _will _stop them," he replied. "Sarah. Stay safe."

"Wait," she said as we turned to leave, grabbing my arm. "Wait, you're going _with _him?"

"You saw what happened back there," I said, looking back at her and trying to conceal my own fear and doubts. "They'll be after me no matter where I'm at."

"I can't stop you." She bit her lip, shaking. "Just—don't you die. This isn't a TV show, it's ugly—it's war!"

"It's not like I'm not scared," I whispered to her, my voice trembling. "But what else am I supposed to do?"

"I know," she replied. Then she clenched her jaw, seeming to come to a decision, and gently pushed me backwards. "Well, go. You're dressed for the part… so if you want to go, go!"

"Sarah…" I murmured, but she was already walking back in the direction of the ambulance, where the EMTs were waiting.

"Ready?" the Doctor piped up.

"…Yeah," I said.

He held out a hand; I stared at it dubiously for a moment before grabbing it, trying to hide the fact that the very offer was exhilarating. _I'm the Doctor. Take my hand and run._

Only we didn't run. He pulled me to the edge of the crater and we slid down, down to the center of it, approaching the empty Dalek pod. It was still smoking slightly from when I had used the eleventh Doctor's sonic. I thought that it was completely dead and useless, but the moment the Doctor touched it, a small light appeared on the inside.

"It's still functioning…?" I murmured.

The Doctor shook his head, clenching his jaw. "Time energy… it's responding to _me._" He quickly turned, gripping my shoulders tightly and giving me a very serious look. "I need you to do something for me. The Daleks are coming—there's nothing we can do to stop it. I can't defeat them without the right weapon, without my ship, and this pod is emitting a frequency that's keeping the TARDIS out of sync."

"What do you need me to do?" I asked.

"Stay here," he told me, and then he pushed his sonic screwdriver into my hands. "Hold this button. Reverse the polarity, disable the frequency—it's going to take a while at this rate, only setting sixty-five seems to work. I'll distract them!"

"You—you'll die!"

"There's a weapon in the TARDIS that will work," the Doctor said. "She'll lead you to it, if you manage to lead her to us. Don't worry about me. There's no other way."

"What if I play the decoy?" I blurted out. "You could probably—"

_"No," _he said firmly, his gaze growing steely—and that was the end of that. I was silently grateful, but a bit ashamed; I didn't really want to risk my life.

…But at the same time, the thought of the Doctor out there dancing around trying to avoid Dalek attacks terrified me, too. He was good at getting out of desperate situations but he wasn't invincible, either. Maybe we'd survive if he sacrificed himself and I managed to call the TARDIS, but how could I live with that outcome?!

Then something came to me, clicking into place in my head.

_It's going to take a while at this rate, only setting sixty-five seems to work._

"Eighty-seven," I said, eyes wide.

"What?" The Doctor stared at me in confusion.

I turned to him, pushing the sonic back into his hands. "Eighty-seven. Try that setting."

"THE DOCTOR HAS FALLEN INTO OUR TRAP."

"THE DOCTOR – CANNOT – ESCAAAPE!"

"They're here," the Time Lord murmured, looking over to the edge of the crater.

"_Doctor," _I said desperately.

He shook his head, wrinkling his nose. "Eighty-seven, it's not that simple! There's eighty-seven A, eighty-seven B, all the way to Z, then we get into the decimals, now _that _is an entirely different story—"

"_Doctor!" _

Suddenly he faltered. "Wait. _Wait. _That setting, it _could _work if we had something to use as a stabilizer…"

I pulled out my own screwdriver, pressing the button to activate it.

_Oh, no worries, I did make some modifications to yours._

The Doctor's eyes widened and he offered me a surprised little smile. "Oh, _yes. _Now where did it learn to do _that?_"

"Things didn't exactly happen in order," I said vaguely. "…No time to explain, right?"

"No time indeed," he replied, and the look in his eyes told me that he was very used to this sort of thing happening. He grinned, holding up his own screwdriver. "Setting eighty-seven. Oh, _brilliant."_

I tossed the cheap screwdriver in my hand, holding it up and silently singing praises to the eleventh Doctor for somehow saving our asses. The Daleks were closing in, looking down at us from the edge of the crater. As the Doctor held up his own screwdriver the light inside the pod shorted out, and suddenly I heard the sound of the time rotor.

The world around us was fading. I saw blue everywhere, I felt a comforting warmth, and then that rushing, wheezing sound was all I could hear. We were inside the TARDIS.

"Atta girl!" The Doctor yelled, grinning fiercely. "Now let's send 'em back to where they came from! All right, force it open!"

He had grabbed hold of the main console and as a reflex, I did so as well. Suddenly I could feel it, a wind sucking everything up in its path coming from somewhere outside the TARDIS—the sound of the Daleks protesting made what was happening twice as obvious.

The Doctor was nearly being torn from his spot, but he held on fast. I didn't feel a thing; while his feet had left the floor and he was hanging on for dear life, I was standing relaxed right next to him, clutching the console lightly.

_Void stuff. _I hadn't crossed the void and the rest of them had. One benefit to not being a traveler of time and space.

After a good five minutes of this—a good portion of which I spent holding the Doctor's hands, fighting to help him keep his grip—the frightening feeling stopped and the TARDIS stilled.

The Doctor fell to the floor of the ship, breathing heavily. I ran over to help him up, staring warily in the direction of the door, just waiting for a Dalek to cross through.

There was nothing.

"Are they gone?" I whispered.

"See for yourself," the Doctor prompted, nodding encouragingly towards the door.

I walked outside slowly, staring around with surprise. The wind had felt so strong and yet I had been unaffected; at the same time, everything out here seemed virtually unchanged, but the Daleks were nowhere to be seen. All I could see was the crowd of police officers and medical professionals, all staring in shock up at a specific spot in the sky. I looked up and attempted to see what they were seeing… but there was nothing. Nothing but endless stars and the dying flames beneath them.

But—no. _There. _A hairline fracture. A barely noticeable white line cutting through the night sky. Was I seeing things?

"Closed, but not sealed off," the Doctor murmured next to me. "Oh no, it's not over yet."

"What do you mean?" I turned to look at him, eyes narrowing a bit.

"Too much interference between worlds," the Doctor replied. "The walls between universes have grown fragile. In normal circumstances, you and I should never have met. But we have… and from here on out I'll have to tread very carefully."

"Don't worry," he continued, meeting my gaze. "Earth is protected, in every universe. I'll see to that."

He was turning away. My heart skipped a beat; he was turning away and I wasn't ready for him to leave. He had barely answered any of my questions and I had literally just met him and how could he just _leave, _whisk in and out of our lives like that and leave a trail of death and destruction in his wake?

Part of me wanted to yell at him. He was the Doctor—but everywhere he chose to go, there was suffering. He was righting the wrongs here, but he at least owed a more thorough explanation. Rochelle was dead and I wanted to know more about what was going on and what we could do about it, and it wasn't _fair._

"Doctor," I said, stepping forward.

He must have recognized the look in my eyes. His expression grew stony, but I could see a great deal of sorrow beneath it.

"No. I'm sorry, but no. I travel alone. I—too many of my companions… I've lost them. Never again."

He had seen the question I was going to ask before I even knew I wanted to ask it. The answer was like a punch to the gut; I deflated immediately.

"Okay," I said, biting my lip. I wanted to argue, but I just couldn't bring myself to. "I'll trust you to the rest. But if you need any help—"

That infectious grin of his returned, and for a moment I could almost forget about that cold, lonely look in his eyes.

"You'll be the first I ask," he said. "Brittany Furness. Wear that costume next year, will you? You remind me of someone I know, someone with dashing good looks."

"Oh, don't go and ruin the moment," I replied, finding myself giving a teary grin in return.

We said our farewells over the sound of the TARDIS departing. I realized with some regret that I had been in such a hurry that I hadn't gotten a good chance to look inside the ship, to even marvel over the size difference from the inside to the outside. Now it was too late—I would always wonder.

I stood there next to a crater in my friend's front lawn, clutching a fake sonic screwdriver, staring at a night sky that suddenly seemed much more vast than before.

_There's no time! Find me, defeat the Daleks, save the multiverse!_

The memory jerked me out of my reverie. That voice, that face, that fond smile, like he knew me better than he was letting on… no. The Doctor had been right—it wasn't over yet.

Not by a long shot.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Rushed? Oh, probably, because I intended this to be a two-shot and as usual it was trying to morph into something a hell of a lot longer so I had to cut it short to shut my stupid brain up. I MEAN LOOK AT THAT ENDING. IT'S NOT EVEN AN ENDING IT'S LIKE "YEAH THERE'S MORE SOMEDAY." **

**Maybe someday I'll actually manage to pull together a Doctor Who longfic that contains all of my feels about the show and is completely satisfying to write instead of me just sobbing at a computer screen until words appear. Until that day... I HOPE YOU ENJOYED THIS LITTLE HALLOWEEN THING.**


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